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U.S., Cuba To Meet Next Week To Discuss Reopening Embassies

A meeting between U.S. and Cuban officials has been scheduled for next week to discuss the possibility of reopening embassies in each other’s capitals, the State Department announced Thursday.

The meeting is said to be part of the effort to restore diplomatic ties between the two nations, CNN reports.

The talks will reportedly take place in Washington D.C. between Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson and General Director of Cuba’s U.S. Division in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Josefina Vidal, to discuss what measures would need to be taken to reopen the embassies in Washington D.C. and Havana.

"Since the President's announcement of his new direction on Cuba last December, the United States and Cuba have seen growing communication on a variety of issues, including matters of mutual concern such as migration, law enforcement, access to information, environmental protection, and trafficking in persons," the State Department said in a statement.

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The talks come less than a month after President Obama announced he was removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The exact date and time of the meeting has not yet been released.

"We have been planning for a meeting next week," State Dept. Acting Deputy Spokesperson Jeff Rathke said. "We don't have an announcement of specific dates right now, but we will make an announcement on the date when both sides have confirmed."

Cuban president Raul Castro said that Cuba and the U.S. will name ambassadors to each other’s countries once the country is officially removed from the U.S. state sponsors of terrorism list later this month.

Once negotiations are completed, the plan is to open the Cuban embassy in D.C. first, followed by the opening of the U.S. embassy in Havana, NBC News reports.